What good is technology against terror?

Kelly McNeill writes: “Only in the wake of a tragedy of such enormous proportions can we truly understand how vulnerable we really are, and how little we can do to prevent a disaster. We have become so dependent on technology that we expect it to somehow miraculously help us when terror strikes. Unfortunately, in time of desperate need, most of the things that we rely upon on a daily basis proved to be virtually worthless. Ironically, the Internet, which was by now supposed to have become the most reliable source of instantaneous news updates, was the first to fail. Both CNN.com and ABCNews.com went down only minutes after the event and were not fully functional for at least an hour.”